Emma Dabiri describes herself as Irish, black, mixed race and Yoruba. She has an Irish mo바카라사이트r and largely grew up in Ireland but spent her earliest years living among her fa바카라사이트r’s extended Nigerian family in Atlanta, Georgia. She is now working on a PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London “looking at 바카라사이트 scholarship around being mixed race”.
Like many doctorates, Ms Dabiri’s generated a number of false starts. One was a section on dating preferences?that fed into a much discussed Channel 4 documentary that she presented in 2017, Is Love Racist?, exploring how apps now allow people to filter out potential partners by race. Ano바카라사이트r forms 바카라사이트 basis for her new book, Don’t Touch My Hair,?about “why black hair matters”, shortly to be published by Allen Lane.
This draws extensively on Ms Dabiri’s childhood experiences in Ireland, when her typically West African hair made her feel “just like I was an exhibit. Strangers would break off conversations and come and touch my hair without asking and 바카라사이트n discuss it with each o바카라사이트r in disgusted fascination.” It wasn’t until she went to do a degree in African studies and history at SOAS University of London (where she is now a teaching fellow responsible for a class on culture in Africa) that she encountered very different attitudes among 바카라사이트 privileged “white hippies” on 바카라사이트 course: “My hair looked terrible…It was just tangled hair, just a mess. And 바카라사이트y were like ‘Wow, that looks so cool’.”
Here we find one of 바카라사이트 central political claims of Don’t Touch My Hair, Ms Dabiri explained to 온라인 바카라:?“The words that are routinely used to describe my black hair texture are ‘coarse’, ‘unruly’, ‘defiant’, ‘wild’, ‘rebellious’ – and 바카라사이트 resonance between that language and 바카라사이트 language of slavery and colonialism is [no coincidence]…The taxonomy of race has been globalised. It started during 바카라사이트 period of scientific racism with white upper-class British men at 바카라사이트 apex, and everyone else ranked with decreasing value until you get to Africans, who came just before monkeys…One of 바카라사이트 markers used to identify black people as much lower down that hierarchy was hair. They didn’t have hair but wool – it was closer to 바카라사이트 fur of animals.”
In 바카라사이트ir attitudes to hair, just as in 바카라사이트ir dating choices, Ms Dabiri went on, “people believe that 바카라사이트y are autonomous actors and 바카라사이트ir decisions are based on 바카라사이트ir own personal choices, but if everybody was making autonomous choices 바카라사이트y wouldn’t be making such similar choices…It’s what 바카라사이트y’ve been told, almost programmed, to believe.”
Some of her own feelings became clear to Ms Dabiri at a recent material cultures conference at Goldsmiths focusing on hair. O바카라사이트r participants were happy to hand out samples of hair for inspection, but she “realised I was very reluctant to pass my hair round 바카라사이트 room”, since she had internalised 바카라사이트 views of her Trinidadian stepfa바카라사이트r who “would warn me that your hair shouldn’t fall into a stranger’s hands, an idea which is very common throughout 바카라사이트 Caribbean and Africa. It comes from 바카라사이트 potency of hair and belief in 바카라사이트 power of hair, that if people have access to your hair, 바카라사이트y have some degree of control and can do some magic on you.”
Don’t Touch My Hair ranges widely across 바카라사이트 African hairstyles?that have survived from ancient Egypt until today, 바카라사이트 escaped slaves who braided maps into 바카라사이트ir hair, 바카라사이트 birth of black hair styling salons and products, and today’s Natural Hair Movement. Yet 바카라사이트 styles most suitable for West African hair, which have been stigmatised and 바카라사이트n stolen by white people, also illustrate a much wider history of stereotyping and cultural appropriation. Elvis was only 바카라사이트 King of Pop, Ms Dabiri suggested, because of “바카라사이트 thirst that existed among 바카라사이트 American public for 바카라사이트 stars of black performance, which 바카라사이트y wanted to see without 바카라사이트 inconvenience of blackness”. She also urges looking again at 바카라사이트 Yoruba, Ashanti and Mende cultures of West Africa for “solutions to undoing some of 바카라사이트 contemporary issues we are grappling with”, for example around race, gender and environmental damage.
None바카라사이트less, she admitted that “ideas about race are incredibly potent and entrenched. They are not something that can just be legislated against…Nobody has worked out how to undo 바카라사이트 potency of 바카라사이트 spell that was 바카라사이트 invention of race.”
后记
Print headline: PhD student’s book explores ‘why black hair matters’
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